Reaching the world where the world's within reach.

Author: Rev. Steve Schlissel

Monday, 5 February 2018

PERSONIFICATION happens when inanimate objects or abstractions are represented as possessing human form. Surely among the most compelling charms of little ones is their intractable tendency to view all the world as *personal.* Witness this picture drawn yesterday for me by Verdinah, age four. She had recently been applying her considerable energy to the motor and aesthetic challenges four-year-olds face when attempting to represent buildings with ink on paper. Satisfied she had gained sufficient mastery of the basics (i.e., squarishness and windows/doors, and on churches, a prominent cross), she wasted no time moving to the next logical step: infusing them with life. The churches, of course, she filled with people (proving she was relying upon her imagination rather than what she experiences at Messiah’s). For domiciles she ordained a different touch. Here we see a lovely little dwelling conveying its “livingness” through its prominent head and face. My favorite feature, however, is the flower growing out of the head.

This work of my progeny brought to mind our quite mistaken adult tendency to *dismiss* such renderings as if eminating solely from naivete and ignorance. I protest. The children really do KNOW that there is no head (with a face plus a hat with flowering flower) on the building. They haven’t been hallucinating. Then why the personification? Think about it! Don’t dismiss a nearly universal, untaught human behavior to be something meaningless–just because it happpens early. That would be hasty at best, doltish at worst. Perhaps it would help if we remember that these tiny ones have also been breathing–starting when they were even tinier, i.e., even before they got to drawing. We don’t think of maturation as the abandonment of inhaling and exhaling. Why should it include the end of personification?

“But,” someone will say, “we don’t SEE– all around us–buildings with heads growing out of them, especially not heads sprouting flowers. Therefore we do well to encourage our tykes to continue with their breathing but to bring to an early conclusion their Dali-esque daliances with ‘breathing’ edifices.” Well, first, we already noted that the kids KNOW that just as well as you do. But next, How soon must they cease to see life in structures? “Oh,” the experts opine, “anytime before the appearance of their second set of choppers.”

If that is your idea of a normal course, be assured that I’m not trying to talk you out of it. What I *am* doing is urging you to at least consider if there may not be something much greater than naivete at work in these kid-prints. Like what?

Like this: Why not think of this characteristic in children’s artwork as “The Watchmaker” argument in a very pure form? You know the argument, one of the so-called traditional proofs for God. It posits the following: No one looking at a fine watch would waste a moment giving credence to any proposition alleging that the watch had no maker but just “happened.” Similarly, the argument goes, no one having the faintest familiarity with this awe-inspiring universe in which we live, move and have our being, would lend credibility to any theory arguing that it “just happened.”

Whatever weaknesses may belong to the watchmaker argument in the hands of philosophers or theologians are made irrelevant in the kindergarten version, at least as I see it. The instinctive persistence of children around the world seems to regard all in their purview as somehow the product of a PERSON. Further, because of that obvious fact, all that IS, whether mobile or static, necessarily shares– to some extent–that PERSONality. This rule is as inflexible and invariant as that which says of a chair, “That is mine,” for what is offered as a self-evident reason, “Because I was sitting in it before you.”

In the latter instance we are often confronted with sound instinct plus sin. In the former, well, to my mind it is nothing other than an evidence of the human condition operating without the aid of sophisticated sinfulness. Before it would occur to children that the suppression of God is needed for a sinful self to enjoy his illicit autonomy, before they’ve been taught–or figured out– that removing God from one’s consciousness–as much as possible–is *necessary* for the conceit of self-creation and self-legislation to flourish, they are reflexively expressing through their art the world as they’ve ACTUALLY found it.

I understand why this view of kidwork is unattractive to the rebellious human mind. I get why it’s more flattering to the self to be satisfied with a “How cute!” I see why evolutionary theory, instead of explaining it, like in everything else, just explains it AWAY. Children see “person” by extension because they see God’s fingerprints, as it were. But those who have, a priori, decided that there is no God and therefore no prints on “His handiwork,” imagine children’s vision to be analogous to “animism.” In a Lemarck redux, they posit that, just as animism is pre-theistic man’s first pitiful attempt to make sense of the world, i.e., putting personality into inaminate forms in the hope of managing dangers, so children express similar ignorance in similar fashion. The question, of course, becomes, Just who is the truly ignorant one?

I submit that it is worth giving thought to the question to come up with a satisfying answer. I suggest that in children’s earliest artistic efforts we find evidence of the REALITY we had to LEARN not to perceive. Before they are recruited into the army of deniers in search of autonomy, they “can’t help but” reveal that, in their view of things–in their worldview– contra Lemarck, nothing arises from nothing. And behind EVERYTHING there is most certainly a Person.

Those chosen by that Person will come to learn His name. Seeing how practiced we are at hating and ignoring Him, that’s more than we merit.

It occurred to me that, when Jesus exhibited His mastery over “inanimate” creation, His disciples, who were not children at the time, said, “Even the winds and the waves obey Him.” Inanimate things OBEYED. That’s not only personification–that is the truth. And the ONLY time anyone would think to deny is if he had first come to regard the Lord as a threat, as an enemy somehow bound and determined to rob us of all pleasure. And these are the people who say “religion” began with an effort to control threatening spirits in rocks. Guess where the rocks are.

With four decades as a disciple of our Lord, I have learned to see just how outrageous, slanderous and stupid it is to cast God as the cosmic killjoy. It’s no coincidence to discover that description, with a little extra blasphemy tossed in, to be the very one used by the serpent to describe the Lord to Eve. But to believe that lie now takes a special kind of dolt. Why? Because since the Rebellion, the Lord God came to Earth, in the PERSON of His Son, to DIE– so that we may live. He took the hit for OUR fault. Does that sound like an enemy? If you don’t know the answer, ask your kid.

Monday, 11 December 2017

Greetings in the name above every name, the Lord Jesus. I’m a Christian minister—have been for 38 years—and I’d like to speak with y’all about Judge Roy Moore’s candidacy, to urge you to recognize how significant and important it is that you support him and vote for him on December 12.

I suppose I should begin by admitting I have no right to tell you what to do. Nevertheless, seeing as most everyone from my neck of the woods is bent every which way but straight in telling you what you must not do, I thought it might not be altogether inappropriate to let you know, not every New Yorker has sold his brains and/or birthright for the dubious “privilege” of being accepted or well-spoken of by atheists.

Speaking of which, I found it interesting that in the venerable (gag) Time Magazine (12/4/17), it was suggested that “real” Republicans in Alabama “fretted that Moore validates the worst stereotypes outsiders hold about Alabama as a bunch of barefoot, Bible-thumping rednecks.” This is not surprising to read in Time, which weekly explores new ways to deceive and manipulate readers. Fact is, should you yield to the malarkey being shoveled ad nauseum by Time and its fellow liars-in-print, they would attribute the ease with which they captured you in their lair to precisely that: “Look at that! A few irrelevant blurbs, some weightless slander, a tear or two, and those rubes fell for it hook, line and sinker.” What I’m urging you to do instead is respond, well, if not like Christians, then at least like New Yorkers, which means: vote enthusiastically for Roy Moore and pull the lever in their faces—with attitude!

You might think I’m telling you to vote for Moore despite your conscience. Not at all. Rather, I’m telling you that a Biblically-informed conscience, joined to a keen understanding of exactly what is transpiring in the Public Square, virtually demand that the ‘Bama folk of faith turn out in emphatic force to send Roy Moore to that swamp, with fear toward God, apologies toward the judge for what he’ll be facing, along with a mandate from the good people of his state to “do the right thing.” Let’s make a case.

First, the scurrilous allegations against Brother Moore do not rise above the level of prurient gossip. There is nothing dignified or praiseworthy in their having appeared in public or in being paraded before voters’ eyes within one month of a special election. Do not go about spreading slander among your people.” You shall not go about as a talebearer (Leviticus 19:16). Since every allegation concerns behavior supposedly occurring 30 or 40 or more years ago, it is 100% irrelevant. Understand what I am saying—and what I am not saying. If one or more of the things alleged actually happened, the time to deal with them was close to the event.

Naturally a society that has no use for God has no use for His Law (they think), but we are bound by it. And here the wisdom of God—and our historic submission to Him evident in much of our Common Law traditions—make it incumbent upon a victim to seek redress sometime near the occurrence of the offense. That is why we have various statutes of limitations connected to differing crimes and offenses, those with the most grievous effects or irreversible deleterious consequences given the widest window for the lawful making of a complaint.

Nothing –n-o-t-h-i-n-g in the allegations paraded irresponsibly before our gullible public warrants a 40-year window. This is not just a scheme to rob women or other shy or modest victims of a voice they may have discovered was not, for whatever reason, immediately available to them. The more important reasons include having meaningful judicial procedures. The likelihood of “meaningful” fades in most cases of just this type and it has nothing to do with anti-women sentiment.

Let’s be clear about one thing: We Christians don’t need to invent entitled classes, or provoke artificial class warfare, in order to pursue righteousness or justice. We recognize that the presence of sinners from every class, tongue, tribe, age—as well as from both (of two) genders provides us with sufficient numbers of sinners to keep courts busy till the end of time. But if those courts are to carry out business leading to a verdict—a declaration or word of truth—there must be ordinary means by which the truth may be ascertained.

That means that both accuser and accused have an interest in dealing with troubles close to their actual occurrence. For it is then—and only then, in many/most cases—that corroboration may be obtained by either/both sides in the way of witnesses, or establishment of alibis, or in the ability to trace criminal steps, or exculpatory facts. The very memories of both victim and perpetrator become less reliable with each passing day, and that for a variety of reasons.

Not to mention, the right to be judged by a jury of peers cannot be wholly disconnected from the notion of culturally situated jurors. This becomes much more important in a time of rapid cultural change—or even upheaval—as all of us have seen many times. A word or phrase spoken in 1979, or an action taken, could well have morphed over time to become connoted either more or less excusably. For these reasons, and many, many more, real offenses have to connected to real charges sometime near to the occurrence of the offense.

In this light, you can instantly see how grossly irresponsible was the prominent posting of these irresponsible splutters 40 years after “offenses” allegedly occurred. (Is it not a measure of the pitiful critical faculties of our media mavins that they included at least one women, whom we have been instructed to believe, who has stated plainly that there was no offense at all during the alleged events, and that she had for some period afterward treasured the times in question as pleasant?) Worse, of course, than the appearance of these grievously anachronistic charges was the guilt of the newspaper, the hyper-partisan slush rag which self-consciously took it upon themselves to cut Roy Moore out of the imminent promotion to which his exemplary career and good name entitled him. Their salacious, eager descent into yellow-journalism, into unconscionable smear journalism, puts upon them a greater guilt.

But to review this first point…actually, let us make an introductory statement to the point. What’s that you say? It’s too late for that? Well, yes. But what I was going to say is, for reasons mentioned and their corollaries, the plain and simple FACT is, it is impossible for any of us to be reasonably certain about the truth or falsity of these vicious and sudden charges. There are many, many, many things limited creatures such as ourselves do not and cannot know. These are properly reckoned among them. Can anyone successfully challenge the trustworthiness of that statement?

No, you cannot. You can only say what you WISH was true—or false. You cannot know. In our better moments, we ALL know that not even the principals can be perfectly certain about every component in every step of things of that nature which happened so long ago. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. Or perhaps you’re under 40 (convenient number).

In any event, my point is, we should not feel entirely without guidance in just such a situation. If no one can determine with confidence the veracity of such claims, THOSE CLAIMS AE TO BE DISBELIEVED and treated in their entirety as polluted, fetid gossip. Not knowing who to believe in this case means less believing Roy Moore than disbelieving his (very late) accusers. It is unethical, immoral, unchristian to lend a credible ear to such unsubstantiated gossip.

If you are not familiar with the Heidelberg Catechism, a Reformed summary of the undoubted Christian faith, a summary used without interruption in Protestant Churches for nearly 500 years, the Ninth Commandment has something very relevant and powerful to say into this very situation. Listen to it carefully (remember, a catechism is simply a teaching tool in question and answer format):

Q. 112. What is god’s will for us in the ninth commandment?
A. God’s will is that I never give false testimony against anyone, twist no one’s words, not gossip or slander, nor join in condemning anyone without a hearing or without a just cause.

Rather, in court and everywhere else, I should avoid lying and deceit of every kind; these are devices the devil Himself uses, and they would call down on me God’s intense anger. I should love the truth, speak it candidly, and openly acknowledge it. And I should do what I can to guard and advance my neighbor’s good name.

You’ve seen scores—if not hundreds or even thousands—of Christians trampling all over this obligation. Let God judge them. But you, YOU must do the right thing, the God-honoring thing. Of course, the very least thing you must do is that which you would want done to you in a similar, though reversed, situation.

What I’m telling you is, in the presence of unprovable charges of heinous acts, originating from very questionable sources (I speak of the blood-loving media, not the women),
charges which happen not to have the character which could belong to a violation of a statute with a lifelong statute of limitations, charges which, even if true, have not left a single “allegator” with lifelong debilitating difficulties (as in, crying out for compensation), charges which had mysteriously, and as yet inexplicably, been kept entirely out of sight, in reserve in a completely secret place, even though Judge Moore ran many times for statewide elective office—and was twice elected as Supreme Court Chief Justice (which, if anything, seems even more to call forth the revelations now alleged as pertinent—and not to mention, closer to the events alleged)…

…in the circumstances just described you are under solemn obligation under God, to completely and altogether dismiss from your view and from your decision making the irrelevant allegations in their entirety. You are not permitted by God to employ them in informing your vote.

How can I say that? Every Lord’s Day it belongs to me to tremble as I dare to speak for God. God help me if I don’t –that, for all its dread and discomfort, is my calling. But I try hard to confine myself to declaring what He has revealed in His Word, making my offerings defeatable by anyone using ordinary means. I’ve explained the first reason I can confidently say, if you had planned on voting for Judge Roy Moore for Senate before November 9, nothing whatsoever has happened or been revealed which would warrant your changing that resolve.

(Obviously, I confine the sweep of this to the scurrilous tripe generated by the Washington Post, which has resulted in him being routinely introduced in print as in Time, “The alleged child-molester.” The penalties against actual child molestation, according to Scripture, should be visited upon those making such outrageous charges. But they don’t have the courage of Roy Moore, or the courage of any inviolable principle).

The SECOND reason to vote for Judge Moore is, his place in the current religious war in the West. The short version is: It is clear why his enemies hate him, dread him, fear him. Of course it is their hatred for God which they spread upon Judge Moore. If they thought soundly, they would recognize in his two “controversial” stances that Judge Moore was actually and genuinely representing their best interests.

I hope to write more about that second reason. But these are the most important parts, from a pastor’s perspective. I urge you to consider them in prayer and in faithfulness to God’s eternal Word and not merely to the feelings demanded of you by today’s wayward culture.

Sunday, 10 December 2017

Greetings in our Messiah. I apologize for sending this Part 2 of 2 to you so close to the day of your vote, but the truth is, each time I sat down to compose it, I became distraught. I tried to provide helpful perspectives which make clear why it’s a net-net/no-brainer to support and vote for Roy Moore to fill the senate seat formerly occupied by now Attorney General Jeff Sessions. But, speaking of sessions, each time I engaged with the topic, the illogical, irrational, disingenuous and/or embarrassing excuses to reject Judge Roy Moore started clamoring for attention, leaving my original simplicity looking anemic or inadequate.

Consider, for example, Thursday’s WSJ tirade against Brother Moore. It is the perfect example of debilitated, RINO, “conservative” thinking, and that last word really doesn’t even apply. The Journal piece concedes that trial by newspaper is distasteful and ought to be avoided. It acknowledges that the 40 year-old expiration date on the complaints is significant. But, say they, “there are strong moral and practical reasons to reject Mr. Moore.” After reading it, I wondered why they didn’t provide any.

Listen, please: the opposition to Roy Moore that I’ve seen is all connected to the positions he was known for prior to winning the Republican nomination. There is not a single cogent position against him relying on the gossip. It seems all that dastardly effort did was provide faux cover for people who dislike fundamental tenets of Christianity and certain facts of American history. For them, adopting the baseless and empty rhetoric which has them horrified at his non-deeds allows them to imagine that their disloyalty and their falsehoods emanate from some high moral perch. They don’t.

You want to talk about practical concerns? I have one. If these bottom feeders succeed in their Alabama wool-pulling, you may be certain that in every future campaign for elective office in which an unashamed Christian American runs as an unashamed Christian American, there will be this brazen trolling for dirt, there will be the journalistic “want ads” soliciting filth they can artfully dress as “news,” and the phony melding of isolated events of uncertain character into a public cyphering which won’t stop until enough voters reckon zero + zero + zero equals three—and “Three’s the charm.”

It was especially distressing to hear Christians who have bought wholesale into a practice born out of the gliberal worldview. What practice? The one in which violations of their Leftist Commandments result in the violator’s ontological reassignment. The meaning of this is important, so bear with me. It is best seen by comparing systems.

Christians recognize we are all sinners. Christians recognize that sinners sin. But we also know the grace of God, that grace which can and often does lead sinners to repentance. The Bible is extremely clear about this. Paul, in one place, lists many kinds of sinners, sinners who embody assorted evils—he mentions idolaters, thieves, male prostitutes, homosexuals, drunkards, the greedy and slanderers and more. But then he says “Such were some of you.” You are not such any longer! Yes, even homosexuals and idolaters can be transformed. Through faith in, and repentance toward, Jesus Christ they (and we) become new creations. They were washed, St. Paul explains: sanctified and justified. Jesus is also very emphatic in demanding that we believe and own this truth: “Do not,” He warned, “call unclean that which I have (cleansed and) made clean.” We know that true repentance is not a function of lip but of life, therefore we look for changed lives from those who were sinners but want to be right with God

Unbelief knows nothing of this whole world. They know nothing of God’s righteousness (or rather, they know it, hate it and therefore fight it and deny it). Neither do they see or grasp His mercy. I beg you to notice how, when they go after someone, if they can convince people that ‘Person X’ violated one of their many unpardonables (which change favored victims like Baskin Robbins changes its flavor of the month), they feel their job is done. There’s nothing more to do. Once they have put a person in their ontological box, there is (to their minds) no escape. “He IS a deplorable. She IS a racist, etc.”

Redemption simply does not factor in to the leftists’ view of things. Christians live gratefully because of it, in terms of responsibilities rather than entitlements. Conservatives can reason toward improvements. But redemption and reason are not prominent for NYTwits (those whose thought is anchored in the drivel of the New York Times).

That is why you’ll hear them flippantly condemn vast swathes of people based not upon what the people have done, but by what Leftist ideology holds those people to be. It is the same idea which lies behind hate crimes as a distinct category. You’d think the fact that a guy murders you is hate enough. But no, if he did it with full recognition of the magical group you belonged to, well, that’s a real crime. This is, of course, in league with their belief that gender is not objective (a direct consequence of atheism). It can only be objective if there is a Sovereign Determiner. Denying Him now means everyone must be put on hold until they are informed what gender category a person has chosen.

The Bible teaches us that a man can hardly be confident he knows himself (Jer. 17:9), let alone all others! Yet the state of affairs ushered in for us by NYTwits imagines an elite able to peer into others’ hearts, yet at the same time, they cannot tell boys from girls. Talk about the blind leading the blind! This is all connected to the reams of daily identity judgments proffered by the media, not so concerned with actual deeds but positively obsessed by which category you belong to. They even dispense awards based not at all on merit or value, but on the end of achieving balance along a contrived spectrum. (As in, Women must be tech heads whether they like it or not.)

This is why they are comfortable condemning every White person as inescapably racist. It has nothing to do with his deeds, though they are ever ready to grasp at the slimmest hair to serve as “proof”! It is also how they (in neo-feminism) come to regard all males as unreformable rapists. It is what you are—and what you do won’t help. The guillotine never tires as it falls on all members of disfavored categories.

Now I’ve labored to contrast these worldviews because I want you to understand how, in a worst case scenario, we ought still to vote for Judge Roy Moore. Moreover, not to vote for him would be to embrace and to live by the ethic of unbelief.

First, please make a note that I am not privy to any inside information. In fact, I already told you that one of the reasons we must ignore the gossip so dear to the Washington Press is that it is very unlikely, it is unrealistic to think any of us can come to know with certainty just what happened in the scenes being alleged. It was back in 1993 that I founded an outreach called Meantime Ministries, exclusively for women who had been sexually abused as children. I had to learn and unlearn a lot as I sought to bring the amazing grace of God to the lives of women who had been profoundly scarred as children. One thing I learned in spades is that “memory” is not a zero-sum entity.

The point is simply this: For people willing to believe the worst about these allegations, two very distinct groups should appear. The unbelievers who buy it, the Christ rejecters, have all they need to write Roy Moore off the planet. They are so manipulated by New York hypocrites that they’ll manage not to notice that between 2000 and 2010, CBS News reports, there were 3,853 minors married in New York State (and hundreds of thousands nationwide). You read that right. And not only are minimum age requirements absent in 27 of our states, but at one time New York minimum age for marriage was 14. Guess when that “Neanderthal policy” was abolished. Anyone? 1927 you say? 1968? Nope. The law changing the minimum age of marriage from 14 to 18 entered the NY books in June of this year. That’s right—in January of 2017, 14 year-olds, the youngest age of the Roy Moore’s alleged courtship “victims,” were eligible marriage partners in New York State.

Another factor: the 70s was the last generation in which girls envisioned marriage and family normally, i.e., not too long after physical maturation. With feminism’s devious and for-the-time-being triumph in relegating the home and family to the dust bin, girls have been bullied into birth control, harmful, temporary relationships, and into postponing marriage until after they’ve become good working men. If you’re going to judge, get all available factors in your judgment.

But returning to our two worldviews (which, remember, we are putting to a worst case scenario in which Moore is absolutely guilty of all alleged), the unbelieving view says, “Forty years ago? Had something remotely to do with sex? Off with his head!”

But the Biblical Christian says, “Forty years ago? What’s he been doing since?” Because we have an ability that leftists don’t—to distinguish between (not sever) ontology and deeds, we are interested in knowing if even gross, undesirable, perhaps even once criminal behavior has

continued to be a distinguishing feature in Roy Moore’s life? And what do we discover? We discover that, for the 32 years of his married life, even the Washington Post has conceded Judge Moore has lived a squeaky clean life. Now, this leads an intelligent Christian to conclude (again, on the basis of a worst case scenario) that one of two things (or both) happened. Either marriage did to Roy Moore what marriage has been known to do to men, i.e., fix them and turn them in to REAL men; or, Jesus Christ touched his heart and called Brother Moore back to Jesus and back to his senses. But in either case, we are NOT dealing with information confined to 40 years ago. We have info on an entire life!

Those with willfully truncated views—when they come upon a sinful juncture in a man’s life, erect a stop sign and declare (if politically expedient), “This man’s life stopped here, becoming at this point just irredeemable, useless crap. Go look for someone else.” But those with level heads, and especially those with Christian eyes say, “Hmm, well, if that happened, I don’t approve of it at all. But apparently, long ago, Judge Moore (assuming the worst case view) came to the same conclusion, and has lived an honorable life in accord with that self-judgment for more than 30 years.” Which ought to be the instinctual Christian view (in the imagined worst case)?

Believe me, I get the “Gotcha!” that you’re thinking of: “But that would mean he lied now in denying it.” First, that is still a maybe—we do not know this. But let’s call it a yes. And if it was a yes, I’d ask you, Dear Christian: is it beyond your ken to fathom why a man would want to keep such a difficult to fathom piece of his past from a “trial by newspaper,” especially something which, on any right view, is no longer truly the case? Is it a trial to grasp why a man would reflexively act to keep it from a venue where only one verdict would be permitted—and where the guillotine is on hand, in view, night and day?

I get why you might find this inadequate. We’re just trying to be thorough, playing out various possibilities. For me, for the reasons offered, all roads lead to a Moore vote, without hesitation or apology. Nevertheless, for the fortieth time, we should remind ourselves we are presently in a land of pure speculation. And that’s where this matter will remain, in fact, like it or not, until long after the election.

The Wall Street Journal, in an arrogant, hypocritical, dishonest and self-serving cynicism, tells Alabamans that a vote against Moore is righteous even though it is a vote for dead babies—now. Why is that, oh Grand Poohbah Journal? It is because you detest the positions he took in controversial instances. And unless I’m very mistaken, I think it is especially against his Biblical view of homosexuality as sin that you carry the most resentment. It would be easier if you were honest, but you leave me only to follow the signs of your lies to their likeliest cause, rather than plain words (which require clear consciences).

Just one more item to consider before I test your patience with a short word on those twin controversies connected to Judge Roy Moore.

In September of 2010, an 18-year-old Rutgers freshman named Tyler Clementi—a homosexual who had confessed his self-understanding to his parents just prior to beginning his college

career—committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. Before the suicide Tyler had been pranked by a straight roommate who, though yielding their room to Tyler for a liaison with a “date,” had first set up a computer to spy on Tyler & Friend. From another location the feed from the dorm room showed Tyler and a man kissing. Immediately upon Tyler’s suicide, the media went “homophobic” wild. The roommate spy was arrested, jailed, tried, jailed, partially vindicated, the occasion for a law being overturned, but in all, nearly ruined.

I am telling you about this incident because it contains two interesting, pertinent facts you should know. First: Tyler left a suicide note which was not made public or used in evidence because, it was claimed, what he wrote in it shed no light on those criminal proceedings. Say what? The note in which he explained his desperate action was irrelevant to that which put the roommate on trial? Isn’t there in this assertion an unavoidable inference that Tyler did NOT commit suicide because of the prank, or, to use Ellen’s all-encompassing phrase for disagreement—bullying. Reporters NEVER connected the dots for readers, though interestingly, some homosexual observers did. The known fact about his own outing to his parents shortly before his death, i.e., that it had gone very poorly, was covered up. The press, with the mother’s eventual help, would attribute her shock and disapproval when hearing her only son telling her he was gay, to the “evangelical church teachings” they had been subjected to. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the slap in the face of her grandmotherly hopes. Ha. Of course not.

That was one. The second pertinent item is this: Tyler was 18. He was just out of high school, only a month into college. He was, in fact, too young to legally purchase cigarettes in New Jersey, where he lived. But note this well: The “man” who visited Tyler in his State-supported school, was 32 years of age. Sound familiar? Funny how you heard not a PEEP from ANY quarter, yet that stretch exceeds even the “ten years” which one online genius claimed to be “the limit everybody knows.”

But please—get this: Not a whisper of disapproval, not a word of outrage condemning this unseemly cradle-snatcher (in which he got his planned sex, at least, sex as homosexuals define it). Not a single word judging this man who was nearly twice Tyler’s age, no word remotely akin to “predatory” was ever used in the major media. Yet compare the alleged “victims” of Mr. Moore: all healthy, no lasting effects, no nightmares, traumas, damage. Just long life. What well-adjusted victims! No wonder they could wait 40 years!—there was no hurry for there was no worry. But for the homosexual predator—who may well have contributed a material cause to a child’s suicide—for him the press had only words of honor and respect.

Worse. Much worse. Listen: The fully adult homosexual, the child-manipulator, in Tyler’s case, told the judge he didn’t want to personally appear in court. He said his reluctance to testify was because he was gay. He didn’t want to be seen or known. (That is understandable.) However, the law is the law and there is no provision for not appearing when summoned, and there is no allowance for anonymous testimony in a public trial. Such an accommodation had never been allowed in the history of New Jersey. No exceptions.

Guess what? Right. To the nauseating praise of the new religion, the pedophile’s sensitivity was permitted to upend the law code—and remnant of sanity—of an entire state. He not only got away with his sin, not only may he have gotten away with murder once removed (in culpability), but because he belongs to the anointed class of sexual perverts, But more than all this—he was accorded royal treatment when the entire State of New Jersey bowed to his sissy wishes and granted him what no one had ever been granted before: complete protection, anonymity and deference from the court–as if the perp was the judge!

No, the mainstream media is completely complicit in promoting, endorsing, protecting, deferring to children having sex—in every venue, at every turn—and nearly any kind of sex. BUT! But, when it serves their purposes to condemn it, well, they seamlessly don our convictions!

Now,

THE JUDGE ROY MOORE CONTROVERSIES

In the Time Magazine of October 30, 2017, a six-page spread on Judge Roy Moore makes it abundantly clear that he was targeted for rejection by the mainstream media before the Washington Post got to print one word of their slanderous gossip. The reporters were so astonished by Moore’s claims about America’s judicial system that they could only imagine that he made it up. They portray him as delusional. The article starts with these words: “Roy Moore has been talking with God.” Before the paragraph ends, they tell how “the twice-removed former chief justice of the Alabama supreme court leans back in his chair and shares what the Lord has told him (my underline—sms).

Hmm. What was that? “Our rights come from God,” the 70-year-old Baptist says. “The Constitution was founded upon God. It was made for moral and religious people. It is the fallen nature of man that the Constitution meant to restrain.” You get the feeling it took all their self-control not to laugh in his face.

Thus the press. I don’t know what they learned in college, but I sure know what they hadn’t learned. The idea that Moore might have told them a common piece of knowledge was unthinkable to them. He had to come by that by way of a word from the Almighty! What contemptuous, ignorant idiots.

It is, of course, a legitimate question to ask, whether there was, at our nation’s founding, a belief that our rights preceded our Constitution? Any well-taught school child could tell you—in fact, any person familiar with the topic (thus excluding Time reporters) can tell you the proof: The Declaration of Independence, penned more than a dozen years before the Constitution, explains that we were compelled to form our nation because a certain tyrant denied what we all know to be self-evidently true–the FACT that we are endowed by our Creator (note for Time Magazine: —that means God) with certain unalienable rights. The King of England said our rights come from him– and therefore they can be withdrawn by him. But America’s Founding Fathers said, “In a pig’s eye!” So not only is Judge Moore correct, but the truth he expressed is such an vital,

elementary and important one for us that it is fair to say, we became a nation in order that it may be established forever and beyond doubt. How encouraging that our major media mavens never heard of it. Not!

Perhaps the lunatic reporters were misled by their reading of the Constitution, over which they superimposed notions of America’s commitment to keep God out of public policy, or that they favored a religious neutrality which works out to be: He who believes least has the most say? Such people have a devil of a time explaining things which our Fathers actually wrote, actually discussed, actually adopted and really codified. Things like these:

No man “who acknowledges the being of a God” can be deprived of his civil rights. That’s from a Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights (1776), but the sentiment is found saturating early state constitutions: The rights these documents guarded were the rights of Christian believers. We have been so heavily taught otherwise that the thought seems unthinkable. But there it is!

Maryland: “(A)s it is the duty of every man to worship God…all persons, professing the Christian religion, are equally entitled to protection…” (Constitution of Maryland, Section XXXIII, November 3, 1776; incidentally, this is one of several constitutions restricting office to those who make “a declaration of belief in the Christian religion”).

Vermont: “(No) man who professes the protestant religion [may] be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right” (A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the State of Vermont, July, 1777).

Massachusetts: “(E)very denomination of Christians…shall be equally under the protection of the law…” (Constitution of Massachusetts, October 25, 1780). This document actually holds the very purpose of government to be the enablement of people to govern themselves. It is made explicit that the rights of the people under God are original, the government only insofar as it serves the people’s enjoyment of life, liberty and property.

I don’t need to tell you how snide, uppity, haughty and self-important the tone is. It never lets up. And they call that news reporting? Moore’s plainspoken views are true to fact. Yet, with no sign of even polite hesitation, they are mockingly treated like the rantings of a madman, a senile dreamer. The only dreamers are those who disagree with the truth the judge uttered. Did you read that tiny sampling from state constitutions, above? Our generation must mourn the condition of its press. Free? Yes—free to be ignorant, lazy and arrogant, all the while feeling safe and comfortable in their NYTwit blanket of lies.

In Judge Moore’s plain reading of the plain facts of history, modern disbelief finds an irresistible occasion to take their own fixed, insane hatred for God and pour their bile all over the judge.

Most pitifully, however, their contempt for the Lord and truth have blinded them to the fact that Judge Moore’s “controversial” stances actually and genuinely represent their best interests. It has been the unique glory of the American experiment to seek in government precisely what Moore described: that government would, by the least intrusive means possible, restrain the nasty outworking of man’s fallen nature so as to allow the righteous to govern themselves. This land was to be a land for righteousness. Wickedness opposed it. But so did a long human history in which we found a strong human propensity toward tyranny. We sought in America to establish a system sufficiently equipped to inhibit wickedness while containing sufficient safeguards to inhibit tyranny.

The clearest and most direct path to tyranny happens in a system which is imagined to operate supremely, that is, under no Higher Authority. This is an inescapable presupposition drawn from our original founding documents and confirmed by universal experience. Brilliantly distinguishing the American idea of rights from most or all others is the phrase, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…”

As to the other “controversy,” I can only say, we all should get on our knees every day to thank God that at least ONE MAN told the Supreme Court, “You have no right in heaven or on earth to define marriage contrary to the definition given by its Creator.”

Jesus also spoke of “What God has joined together.”

This no varsity contest, this is a fight for the soul of a nation. Wimps go home—or to Russia. The protests which followed Trump’s November ’16 victory should have been pale reflections of the insanity loyal Americans we should have brought to the streets following Windsor and Obergefell. Five Supremes imagined themselves possessed of power to tell God to go to Hell. And then they DEMANDED all Americans jump at their contemptuous command. In the Jack Phillips (the Christian cake-baker) case, they are preparing to tell us how high. This is the one nation on earth founded to forbid such outrageous usurpation. We bled to keep out of the hands of men any imagined or pretended “divine right” to veto God! Is every Christian so thick-skulled and stupid not to realize that if man possesses the power to redefine marriage, he is claiming the power to redefine everything. There’s not been a more flagrant outrage in the history of our nation. And I know of only ONE public servant who had the guts to tell those fools they were naked, they were wrong, they stepped far outside their proper bounds. If you don’t think Judge Roy Moore was right in that, then don’t vote for him. But if you recognize in his LIFE and WORDS and CHARACTER the voice we so desperately need to speak truth at a time like this, I say in front of God, you have not been given a single reason that could justify your failure to vote for him.

I’m sorry I was unnecessarily harsh. But the issues, I pledge to you, are that serious. The people frolicking as if God is dead better hope they are right. I know they are wrong. What do you know?

May the One who freed us from great guilt and awful bondage—freed us to serve Him in fear and faith throughout our short lives—bless you in the knowledge of Him and in the power of His resurrection.

Saturday, 11 November 2017

This post is a response to an article published by the Gateway Pundit on November 10, 2017 titled: “Report: Alabama Woman Claims Reporter Offered Her $1000s to Accuse Roy Moore of Sexual Abuse?”

The article reads:

“On Thursday the far left Washington Post accused Judge Moore of dating a 14 year-old girl in 1979. Judge Moore has denied the charges. A Navy veteran who served 22 years for his country and then served in the Secret Service claims a family friend who lives in Alabama told his wife that a Washington Post reporter “named Beth” approached her and offered her THOUSANDS to accuse Judge Roy Moore of inappropriate sexual advances! Of course this is HUGE news if true. The family friend reportedly has a picture of the reporter and contacted the Etowah county District Attorney. They went to the local DA instead of the FBI because EVERYONE today knows the FBI and DOJ has been compromised and cannot be trusted. UPDATE: We have not been able to confirm these allegations by Doug Lewis.”

———

The story is not Roy Moore. The story isn’t even corrupt media. The story is how the egalitarian religion has ALREADY led to a populace so stupid, so movable, malleable, fickle and brainless, that it is almost irresistible to conclude that they DESERVE the totalitarianism and national wreckage they are being led into leap by leap. As long as people are relying on MSM to tell them what the world is, does, needs, wants and is going, they are USELESS. The Fathers never envisioned a system in which every moron had “a right” to vote. But even if that right exists (and why not for 3-year-olds as well, for that is the sophistication level of more than a few—if it’s a RIGHT, hey…), it was never conceived as one to be exercised by those being pandered to and bought off. Here’s a simple proposal: since it is an inescapable and obvious conflict of interest, make it in stone that no one receiving from the government (for which elections are being held) any money or benefit not explicitly being a return on their own prior investment, be permitted to vote. (Spare all the qualifications, at least spare me).

Look, Roy Moore ran for elective office in Alabama before—important office. How naive one must be to give credit to a story alleging to have predated his ENTIRE, highly controversial and high-profile career, when not a whisper was heard re: this sort of tripe. But now that he may be rightly expected to be Bam’s choice for Senator replacing Sessions, AND (most important), immediately after the successful trash spin on two Dem wins being equal to a massive rejection of Trump, they wish to strengthen traction and MAKE the fiction credible. Fact: in Virginia, the morons gave credence to totally wicked and vicious campaign portraying Gillespie and his supporters as POISED AND READY to murder all minority children by VEHICULAR homicide. I think the one who conceived, produced, approved and ran that slanderous evil should be fined and jailed. Where’s Charlottesville again? How many ways these dogs have found to lie, and how brainless of people to go for it with zero critical function!

One more item to finish the rant. If you’re looking for the key to understanding EVERYTHING we’ve been seeing for a year and more now, the single simple key that unravels every knot, that instantly renders believable every story and slimey action which we’ve thought to be “Unbelievable,” this is the key—Get this and hold it for it explains all ( on one or two levels): No one in the Demoncrapic Party—NONE, not a one—thought, believed, imagined Hillary would lose. Follow carefully: the endless activity we are witnessing, custom made for the American moron, and the ONLY spin available from most outlets, is NOT for the purpose of helping Demoncraps handle the loss!! No!! It is because Hillary could not accept the baton which would have allowed her to manage from the top keeping the lid on her depravity, her evil deeds, the Bahama-Clinton corruption machine, the betrayals the unprecedented corrupt activity and scandal to top every prior scandal–all the fluff and posturing and lying and confetti throwing is to HIDE the smell of Billary and their treason. That is it in a single nutshell. Therefore they are telling all birdbrains the anti-Trump train has left the station, better get on it. And tons will. Every one an idiot.

My point later will be, DV, the absolute urgency of keeping truth and principle ALWAYS in view, the very thing conservatives have become committed NOT to do. Instead, in the name of pragmatism they have not simply LOST every major moral battle of the last 50 years, but they have given all the keys to their enemies, in the process turning themselves into retarding agents—AT BEST.
This is NOT to despise or dismiss COMPROMISE in the political realm. Rather it is to insist that compromise be permitted to taste like what it is by holding principle even higher when reality says compromise is called for. “Already/not yet” has a substantial Christian history. It’s graspable. We can get it, live with it.

What we cannot abide is throwing PRINCIPLE under the bus, the very thing we have become so damned (word used carefully and intentionally used) adept at. Two low-level examples:

1) Ivanka continues pitching her pet proposal that can only further destabilize and punish what remains of the family by forcing all businesses to give X amount of leave–maternity, paternity, fraternity, sorority whatever– when and where the savior state says to give it. What she is demanding—if it is so beneficial to businesses, so self-evidently right and fair–why is it being advanced as a LAW? Much worse, it is framed as a RIGHT, one which will be enforced by federal powers, courts and prisons. Why is it being DISCUSSED pragmatically rather than as a matter which, on the surface, requires it to be immediately dismissed? How so? Well, apart from its having no claim to being under a delegated power, it can only be proposed on a premise which views ALL AMERICAN BUSINESSES as belonging to the State. Really, talk about farce! Her daddy gets rolled into the White House with a mandate to dismantle the hydra strangling us. She says, “Golly, gee, I also have an idea–let’s give it another head!”

2) Nationalization (aka Ownership) of the Health Industry. What really commends Ivanka as Dimwit of the Decade is that her proposal is made at precisely the time when THE HYDRA is busy at work, insuring that, instead of draining the swamp, ALL OUR LAWMAKERS are being drained of their energy while they figure ways to continue to drain our resources. In just ten years, nationalized health care went from being simply a plot which Hillary hoped (since the 90s) to use to convert America to pure Sanderism, into an unquestionable, teflon-coated, absolute, tinker-proof ENTITLEMENT. But all work–as in ALL—proceeded upon the BASIS of what Americans’ dujour sense of entitlement probably included. Result? Hahahaha.

Now what you mustn’t miss is that the SAME point could have been reached with Americans at least having HEARD once or twice what the actual problem was. But no. And I’m not suggesting that they’d have heard of it from the NY Times. Anybody would have done. But nobody did because nobody stayed on principled point—at least, no party did. But you see, here again, it is not the failure to achieve a legislative victory I’m lamenting, but our total failure to make KNOWN, much less clear, that it’s no use talking about retaining Obamacare unless tyranny is appealing. But it’s hard to stay on point when “the party” you look to to save us, itself knows not just what THE POINT is.

Wednesday, 8 November 2017

What do I mean by White Rabbit Age? Imean what Grace Slick meant when she sang about a place/time where “logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.” That’s as apt a description of the gliberal mind as might be offered. As such, it is the mind behind the modern American newspaper. What would an alternative paper, or a cured paper look like? Here’s some of what’s needed in an efficacious Rx .

We are looking for a newspaper with clear and clearly stated, fair, historically informed, sane and honorable principles and policies (and practices). A paper overseen by and staffed with gifted reporters/writers, who passionately LOVE America—her Founding Fathers and her foundational documents, including the explicit and implicit Christian cultural presuppositions evidenced therein—yet who are mature souls whose love is not blind, naive or chauvinistic.

Integrity has been absent from us and our news sources for decades. We earnestly desire that a periodical zealous simply to report news—content to leave what’s done thereafter with a truth-informed populace—begin publication asap, funded by wise conservative money under the control of wise men (and women) who recognize how neglect of this essential component (essential, yes, for any independent republic which would continue breathing free) has hastened our demise. Want of truth hastened, but the lies and manipulations standing in Truth’s place have spearheaded and directed that demise. The societal disintegration we witness is not simply aided by the false narratives in firm control of every major news purveyor today, but the want of TRUTH plainly spoken–and the lies promoted in truth’s place–must be recognized the chief means of prodding, guiding and accomplishing our destruction–as much as or more than any and all political activity. After all, if politicians have abandoned principles in favor of the latest opinion polls and focus groups, what ought we to expect when the ONLY shapers of those opinions are degenerate, statist devotees of tyranny? Haven’t the people been left long enough without a printed alternative?

The policies guiding such a new newspaper would include:

In addition to organizing the news by Local, Regional, National, International and the normal topics, the newspaper would further distinguish between NEW stories (as in, since the last edition, viz., yesterday/today) and older, i.e., continuing stories. Why? Because, as policy, EVERY item reported in the “new” news section would STRICTLY limit reporting to the FACTS (who, what, where, etc.), without opinion, speculation, prognostication, sermonization, or implication. No “connecting the dots” for us poor ignoramuses.

This, of course, constitutes as radical a change as one could imagine, but it is a change that would find a news source reporting NEWS to a constituency treated like FREE ADULTS who may be left to form their own opinions. This change makes for a stark contrast with the way mainstream media function today, no? Today, from the choice of material to its presentation and manipulation, “news” is completely commoditized, shaped, pared, puffed as needed, forced to serve a dishonest, despicable, gliberal, God-hating, America-despising anti-sanity agenda. NOTHING makes its way into today’s paper which has not been been chosen for its utility as, or bent so as to serve as, A WEAPON.

Just imagine how unbelievably refreshing it would be to sit down with a newspaper which has chosen NEWS for its news and disciplined itself to REPORT the same AS news. Somebody, please, find the money and start a paper committed to this prescription. Then I’ll begin saving for a recliner I can relax in to read. Otherwise we’ll all need prescriptions for tranquilizers if we plan to continue reading. So what’ll it be? Which way is that White Rabbit heading–toward Truth… or Prozac?